I was always the shame of the family - the one Yankee who was actually born in the North.

I had been doing summer stock every summer while I was in college. We did a showcase, like most good conservatories do - monologues and things that agents and casting directors come to see. From that I got an agent.

It makes me proud, and it makes me scared. More than anything, I want to be an actor and I want to keep working, and I think there's a danger in being perceived as a poster boy for something.

I don't want to be the center of attention. My posture has changed. I walk with my head down and shoulders slumped. Suddenly I carry myself as if I'm ashamed of something.

It's a really subtle kind of thing. It makes me feel like Randy Harrison is not a human being to them.

I can't speak on behalf of the show. I'm not a creator; I'm just a pawn.

I wonder what kind of lives they will have built for themselves when they turn 45 and can't really have any connection with people because they are so used to fleeting sexual.

I don't want to be Tom Cruise. I'm not after some movie blockbuster career. That's not the kind of work I'm interested in. And frankly, it's not the kind of work I'm ever going to get.

I guess I had a suspicion of it my entire life without knowing exactly what it was - knowing that there was something different about me, which I attributed to being an artist. At 11 or 12 I started sort of clarifying for myself. It took a while.

I just don't think that I could be the kind of actor I want to be and not be honest with myself. Honesty is very important to me as an actor and as a person. I didn't even think about it.

I love my parents. Coming out to them was sort of coming out to myself. I educated them, and I wanted our relationship to keep growing. I wanted them to be a part of my life still. I wanted to be able to share with them what I was going through.

I've done sexual stuff before - onstage, which is even more emotionally difficult. With a TV crew around, you are stopping and starting; it becomes really technical. It's not erotic at all.

It always weirds me out and makes me unhappy that some people think I'm Justin. I'm not. People can be talking to me and I know they think they are talking to Justin. It's hard to explain.

It's a clique that I've never been a part of. It's not like I identify them in a negative way.

It's nice to see that people in Middle America are really affected.

I don't know for Justin; he's always looking for meaning out of his relationships with people. I don't think he's as trapped into the drug thing as a lot of the others are.

I actually have more respect for people who are in the closet. You end up exposing so much of yourself because you have to talk about your sexual life. You shouldn't have to talk about it.

The whole character of Justin and the club life he lives - I have no experience with it. It's really foreign to me, which is annoying, but that's just how it is.

I never felt a need to manipulate my career from the outside - try to be someone I wasn't to get ahead.

By the time I came out, that kind of stopped it. The bullying stopped when I claimed myself and proved that I wasn't afraid. A lot of it was when I was hiding when I was younger.

I was always the shame of the family - the one Yankee who was actually born in the North.

I think the sense of community that exists with all the characters - that's the answer. The fact that they have found a family in their friends. It does give some depth and meaning to their lives.

A lot of my friends are club people. It's not me. It's funny to represent that, because it's not me. I don't fit into a gay club setting. It's just ironic that I represent that somehow.

Dad said that he was prouder of me than he'd ever been when I came out.

I'm confident in my ability to maintain a career. I don't know if it will be doing either independent films or plays in New England.

I hope that they are finding satisfaction. I'm in no way making a judgment. I know it doesn't make me happy.

When you watch it, you're like, Wow. I look like that. But it doesn't feel like that at all. It was about communicating with Gale Harold and getting across what I wanted to say about the character.

I wasn't being bullied at school at this point. I had a group of friends, and I was isolated because I wasn't communicating with my parents. I wasn't telling them what I was going through.

I can't walk down the street with my head up. I'm not a hat wearer, but now I'm a hat wearer.

It's upsetting that it is such a big deal. I wish it weren't an issue all the time. It's funny that people say it's a departure, because I've been acting since I was a child. I've played three gay roles out of hundreds.

Young actors often don't think of the consequences of doing nudity or sex scenes. They want the role so badly that they agree to be exploited, and then end up embarrassing family, friends, and even strangers.

On the road to equality there is no better place for blacks to detour around American values than in forgoing its example in the treatment of its women and the organization of its family.

We're parents first, and once you have kids, everybody knows that you have priority lists. Number one is your family and everything else just kind of finds its place.

I have a project at HBO and one at the Family Channel coming that are being looked at. Aside from that I am not doing much more than playing golf and some skiing.

I didn't tell anybody about my plan because I was convinced my family or friends would stop me. I didn't think much about what would happen afterwards.

You know raising a family in the lifestyle of a professional athlete can be very difficult.

I love to see my family together. That's what life is about. It's about family.

Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial.

It was an idea we had when Al was in the Senate - to organize and moderate an annual conference that would look at government policy through the lens of the family to help identify ways that the family can be supported and strengthened.

Even though we were all celebrities to a certain extent, we all looked at each other as family.

The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States.

A growing awareness of the depth of popular attachment to the family has led some liberals to concede that family is not just a buzzword for reaction.

I love my family.

I have other obligations now - the show, my family, my life... though I know that without my sobriety I wouldn't have any of those things.

When they were small and my wife really had no other responsibilities, except taking care of the family and all of us, it wasn't that big a deal. It was fun. Hey, we're going to Moscow. We're going to Italy. We're going to Toronto. We're going to New York.

I miss my family, and I like being a tourist when I go back.

I'm not in the business of becoming famous. And that's the advice I give to younger aspiring actors. Work onstage and do the little roles. In the end it's not important to be seen. It's important to do. There's a lot of disappointment in this business, but my family keeps me grounded.

The last three decades have seen the collapse of the family wage system.

I have continued systematically to study the Book of Mormon and Bible to understand even more deeply what God expects of me and my family while on this earth.